


Traviamento

by Albione



Series: Traviamento [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Movie AU, remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 06:19:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17823494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albione/pseuds/Albione
Summary: Oliver remembers a conversation from many years ago.





	Traviamento

**Author's Note:**

> I know I have been missing, but I have lost the voices of Elio and Gunes. Trying to get back on the writing horse again with this short ficlet. I know what I want to write, but it just is not settling down into words on screen. There is half of an unloved chapter of Golden Sun in my laptop, hopefully it will see the light soon.

Oliver relaxed into the armchair and sighed in pleasure. It had been a hard day at work, he sipped the gin and tonic slowly and looked at the flames dancing in the fireplace.  
He could hear movements in the kitchen and the boys squabbling about something in their room; the usual domestic sounds that could be comforting.

But the crackling of the fire brought back different sounds, cicadas outside a bedroom window kept open to catch a night breeze, two bodies entwined and satiated.  
He took another sip of his drink and closed his eyes. 

“Sometimes the traviamento turns out to be the right way, Pro. Or as good a way as any.”  
He felt the arrogance in his tone, that morning of twenty years ago; but he still wasn't sure what he meant.  
Was Elio his traviamento, was going back home and settling into an expected life the wrong path?

When he proposed to Rachel in the small diner he had that nagging feeling that he had made a wrong turn.  
“Oliver, of course I want to marry you!” Her smile was so wide and open that he felt a fraud.  
Others had turned and smiled at the two of them; they were young and on the brink of a life together; he had grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself.  
There was no turning back.  
A log hissed and fell from the carefully stacked pile; Oliver opened his eyes and looked around.  
The homely furniture, comfortable and worn, books and magazines piled around him; there was only one place he wanted to be more than here, a villa in northern Italy.  
But this would do he though.

From the kitchen Mozart’s Kreutzer sonata was playing from the old radio that had been placed on top of the fridge.  
He remembered Bach played at the piano, Elio’s slender shoulders hunched as he concentrated; how he wanted to kiss the skin between those sharp shoulder blades, the crease of the soft skin inviting him, tempting him.  
He kissed that spot, and many others, by the end of the summer.  
The traviamento was complete before he stepped onto the plane back to New York.

He looked out of the window at the snow piling onto the windowsill; it was snowing when he phoned to tell the Perlmans of his engagement.  
“Do you mind?”  
What a silly question to ask a seventeen year old boy.  
Oliver ran a hand over his face; if he could go back in time he would not say such a cruel thing.  
“I was also young…”  
He held onto that justification for years, as though it could exonerate him in some way. But the guilt eat at him the minute he said those words; he could feel them travelling through underwater cables and exiting into Elio’s ear.  
He heard the slight intake of breath before Elio answered him.

He felt tearful and took another sip of his drink.  
He wondered why all these memories sometimes overwhelmed him.  
He heard a crash from the kitchen and a muffled exclamation and a shouted reassurance to him.

The crash of breaking glass, Rachel’s smile in the tasteful wedding dress, his and her parents looking proud, guests shouting good luck. He felt trapped in his suit, the tie a noose ready to drop.  
It was late spring, all the blooms were out, alive bursting free from the ground, but he was dead.  
He felt a pain in his chest, a physical reminder of that day. He had got so drunk at the reception that he had to be carried to the hotel suite.  
The first of many times he seeked refuge in drink; the first of many times he let Rachel down. Her smile becoming more brittle and strained as time passed.

“How could I have hurt so much the two people I loved?” He wondered.  
But when you know you chose the wrong way there are only two options: ignore it and continue or stop and re-trace your steps to the wrong turn.  
The easy option and the difficult option; each took courage and Oliver never felt courageous.  
But when in front of you there is darkness and despair, you do not have a choice; you do not have pride or fear. 

“Dinner is ready!”  
Oliver stood up, he did not want to remember the tears, arguments and the fights.  
As he walked to the dining room he could hear the boys running from their room.  
“Tortelli Cremaschi! Is it a special occasion pop?” Sam’s dark eyes glittered in anticipation of dinner.  
The serving bowl was full of the carefully crafted tortelli sprinkled with parmesan shreds.  
“I just felt like doing them. I am sure Mafalda would have something to complain about! But since the touring has finished I had the time to prepare them.”  
Elio looked at his family sitting at the table; he caught Oliver’s eye and smiled.  
“Dad, can we go sledging tomorrow?”  
“Of course Reid, if the snow sticks” Oliver replied and started to serve dinner and passing the plates along.  
Sometimes the traviamento is the right way, but you have to battle to follow it.


End file.
